This week in D-III women’s hockey out east we saw a team clinch the regular-season conference title to earn them home-ice for the playoffs. The #3 ranked team (USCHO poll) fell after a nine-goal affair. Meanwhile, we look at each conference to see how the teams may fare in regard to NCAA tournament bids.
Plattsburgh Clinches the NEWHL
Plattsburgh (20-2-0 overall, 14-1-0 in-conference) clinched the NEWHL league title for the 5th straight season and have remained atop the league they’ve dominated since it was established (league was established in the 2017-2018 season). The Cardinals have won all five regular-season league titles and have won all four postseason titles as well; this year would be their 5th straight automatic-bid into the dance if they were to win the NEWHL tournament.
This past weekend they swept Cortland, defeating them 3-1 & 2-1, getting revenge against Cortland who’s given Plattsburgh problems as of late, tying them last year and forcing OT in the league title game, and earlier this season giving them their only league loss this year, shutting them out 1-0. It will be intriguing to see if these two teams meet in the NEWHL finals because if so, anything can happen and Cortland is on the borderline of an at-large bid, so winning the league may be their only ticket into the tournament,
In the games this past weekend, the points for Plattsburgh were relatively spread out, multiple players tallying two points, five separate players scoring. Goaltender Ashley Davis got the two wins on the weekend, making 24 & 21 saves only allowing two goals. For Cortland, goaltender Molly Goergen made 42 & 41 saves, allowing 5 goals in the pair of losses, but still having great performances in both games.
Down goes #3
#3 Amherst & #11 Colby had a two-game weekend series, Colby being the host team. In game one Amherst won 3-2 in OT, but in game two, Colby came out firing, getting out to a 3-0 lead, which eventually got to 5-1, and ended in a close 5-4 game in favor of the Mules. Recapping the win, Colby got off to a quick start as mentioned, scoring 43 seconds into the game and then again shortly after at the 3:07 mark of the first period. They would then add another just past midway through the first at 11:58. In the third period however, things got interesting when Colby came out of the locker room with a 5-1 lead and Amherst began the scoring. The Mammoths scored two powerplay goals, one coming at the 5:27 mark of the period and another at the 12:37 mark. They also added an even strength goal in-between the powerplay goals at 9:14. The third period flurry just wasn’t enough in the end as Amherst fell short by one goal in the 5-4 loss, but considering the hole they dug themselves to start, a one goal loss is nothing to hang your head on. It also helps when your overall record is 19-2-0 and your conference record is 12-2-0. Point leaders for the weekend for Colby were Courtney Schumacher (2 goals) & Meg Rittenhouse (2 goals). For Amherst, it was Avery Flynn (1 goal, 3 assists) & Rylee Glennon (4 assists). Goaltender Natalie Stott for Amherst made 41 saves in the 3-2 OT win and 20 in the 5-4 loss, while Paige Bolyard of Colby made 24 saves and 22 saves.
Looking Ahead
We now take a brief look at the conferences out east so far and see what the postseason picture is looking like as the regular season quickly comes to a close.
NEWHL
To get this out of the way, as mentioned before, Plattsburgh has won the NEWHL regular season title for the 5th-straight season. In terms of the NCAA tournament, Plattsburgh is a lock to get a bid whether it be an auto-bid or at-large. The only other team that will have an outside shot at an at-large bid is Cortland who currently sits at #13. The Red Dragons will most likely need to win out and make it to the championship game of the NEWHL if they want a chance at an at-large bid. At this point however, it’s probably too much of a climb this late in the season for them. If they wanted an at-large bid they would’ve needed to take at least one game from Plattsburgh this past weekend.
Plattsburgh is in the NCAA tournament either way, Cortland has an outside shot.
CCC
It’s pretty simple, the only team headed to the NCAA tournament from the CCC is whoever wins the league title. In my opinion, I think Head Coach Taylor Wasylk and her Suffolk Rams take this one and head dancing for the first time in program history. Suffolk is on their way to locking up first place and winning the regular season title, but Endicott is a team to watch out for as well, as they could always pull an upset and win the CCC title as well.
Whoever wins the conference championship is the only one going dancing. The two frontrunners are Suffolk (14-5-2 overall, 12-1-2 conference) and Endicott (12-7-2 overall, 10-4-0 conference).
NEHC
This conference is intriguing, at first it looked like Norwich was back and ready to win the title, but Elmira has cleaned things up as of late and hold a perfect 15-0-0 record in conference play while Norwich is 13-1-2. Elmira can lock up the top seed and home-ice with a win over New England College or Norwich this weekend. In terms of the NCAA’s, Elmira is in a pretty good spot in terms of an at-large bid at #9, but if Norwich were to win the league title, #9 doesn’t look very safe due to what could happen around them.
If I had to guess, we see one team come out of this conference, whether it be Elmira or Norwich and I believe it’ll come down to whoever wins the conference title and gets the automatic-bid because I don’t think Elmira is in a safe enough spot at #9 if Norwich were to be the team that occupies an auto-bid, but we’ll see.
NESCAC
Now we look at the NESCAC, or shall I say the SEC of D-III women’s hockey because apparently that’s how the pairwise and USCHO poll views it. Half the league could make the NCAA tournament, if we used this metric, let’s assume the top-seeded Amherst wins the league title and gets the auto-bid for the sake of this analysis. At-large bids would go to #6 Hamilton, #7 Middlebury, & #8 Colby.
My only caution here is that some of these teams don’t play the whole cap of 25 games like others, so for example, Colby only plays 22 regular season games, if they were to lose in the first round or second round of the NESCAC tournament (which is highly possible due to the strength of the league), they’d finish with an overall record of 16-7 or 17-7 (assuming they win their last four regular-season games). It’ll be a stretch by the committee if they let a team with that record and minimal games played in the tournament over a team such as UW-Eau Claire who is likely to finish around 22-4-1 after the league playoffs are set and done, but they’re behind in pairwise at #12. By stretch, I mean public perception and relations. The pairwise will determine who gets in down to the 0.0001, but it’s a hard sell to the public when they see the two records side-by-side.
The league will be interesting, pairwise will be fun due to some teams playing so few games compared to others, but it’s really up in the air and from what we’ve seen, anyone can win it and potentially 3/4 at-large bids will come from this conference, UW-River Falls being the lone non-NESCAC team getting an at-large.
UCHC
The UCHC will potentially have two teams in the NCAA tournament if anyone but Utica wins the conference championship, but it’s not very likely. Utica is the only team with an at-large chance and if they win the league then no one else can get in via pairwise. Nazareth is too far behind at #19 and Utica is borderline at-large currently at #10, so they need to plan on winning the league if they want to dance.
